


I'd Do Anything

by nightvesper



Category: Big Wolf on Campus
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8953903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightvesper/pseuds/nightvesper
Summary: Tommy and Merton have been dating in secret for the last year of college. Tommy is terrified people might find out, and after some close encounters Merton thinks he should break up with Tommy for his own good. It'll take a dramatic gesture for Tommy to convince him to stay.





	

 

The times when they were alone were the happiest of Tommy’s life. The whole world fell away when their lips connected and Tommy could enfold Merton in his arms. He lived for the moments of afterglow when they could lay together in sated bliss, holding each other and whispering loving words to each other. Or the moments when they sat together on the couch, watching old movies or talking about classes. Their dorm had become their sanctuary, because in public they had to keep a distance.

As much as Tommy wanted to scream from the rooftops that he was happy and in love, he couldn’t. The thought of people finding out he was dating another man terrified him. He pictured horrible scenarios of people mocking him, guys shying away from him in the locker room, his coach benching him or kicking him off the team altogether. He saw how everyone treated Merton when he came out. Now on top of the usual bullying they would scream out slurs and make vulgar comments before punching him in the stomach. It was one thing to defend Merton from the abuse, but defending Merton _as his boyfriend_ was a different matter entirely. 

Merton agreed to keep their relationship quiet, but he never was good at subtlety and Tommy feared the day he’d give them away. Every time the goth moved to touch him or leaned in too close Tommy’s heart would race and he’d jump back, fear coursing through him. And it was occurring more frequently.

 

Just yesterday when he was hanging out with some of his teammates Merton did it again. He came over to remind Tommy about their study session and rested his hand on the werewolf’s lower back.

Tommy laughed nervously and smacked his hand away. “Dude, if you’re that hard up I know a chick in my bio class who’s looking.”

All the guys burst into laughter. Merton’s eyes widened and his face flushed as he massaged the offending hand.

Tommy caught a glimpse of Merton’s expression for a second before he turned away. It was just long enough to see the hurt in his eyes. He felt the warm presence leave his side and the clomp of boots let him know of the goth’s departure.

 

Today it happened at a restaurant. Merton sat beside him at a table with his other friends when a pretty young woman came up and slipped Tommy her phone number. She gave him a peck on the cheek before she scurried away. The guys hooted and whistled, insisting Tommy call her. Tommy lied and said he would, half-heartedly smiling. Tommy turned to Merton wanting to silently reassure him, but this time when he caught the goth’s eyes they weren’t sad as he’d expected. They were cold and hard, and Tommy’s stomach dropped when the icy gaze turned to him.

Merton’s jaw clenched.  He stood up from the table and squared his shoulders, walking brusquely away.

“Mert, wait!” Tommy called out, but Merton didn’t turn around.

 

Tommy waited a couple of minutes to avoid suspicion and excused himself from the table. He followed him back to their room and found Merton sitting on his bed silently fidgeting with a life-sized model skull.

“You mad about that chick?” Tommy asked, frowning.

Merton didn’t look at him. He continued staring ahead and rolled the skull over and over in his hands. “You’re still hitting on other people. What am I supposed to do with that?” His voice was disturbingly calm and emotionless.

“I wasn’t hitting on her! She hit on me!” Tommy protested.

“You care more about your reputation than you do about me.”

Tommy’s brows drew together in indignation. That wasn’t fair. He didn’t ask for her to hit on him. “That is not true! How can you even say that? I just said I’d call her to get the guys off my back.”

“And how long can you keep this up until those Neanderthals begin to suspect? How long until they start to ask questions about us? Ask why I come home with you for the holidays, why neither of us ever seems to be dating anyone else, or why your bed is always perfectly made, totally _untouched_ for months?”

Tommy flushed. “Merton…”

Some of the goth’s cold facade was falling away and the buried anger and pain were welling to the surface. Tommy wasn’t sure which was worse.

Merton finally turned to him, glaring, dropping the skull and rising to his feet. “A year, Tommy! An entire year we’ve been together and no one knows about us! I’m done hiding. I’ve done that all my life. I left Pleasantville to help me escape the proverbial closet. I never expected to be shoved back into one upon my return!”

Tommy could feel the wolf struggling to break free as his stomach churned with guilt. Already some of his features were changing. “You’re not even closeted, Merton. People know.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know about you, and you try to keep me as ‘straight’ acting around your friends as possible, reminding them I still like women, not letting me touch you so you can feel like your other straight friends,” Merton sneered.

The werewolf sighed, exasperated. “I just don’t want you to give us away!”  
  
“Tommy, I treat you, touch you exactly the same in public as I always have, the same as I did in high school before we were dating and not one of them noticed back then. They react because _you_ react. You’re sensitive to it now. You’re withdrawn. You push me away!”

Tommy staggered a little at that revelation. Was it true? Was he the one behaving differently? "This would just be so much easier if you weren't a dude." As soon as he said the words Tommy realized they were the wrong thing to say. 

Something changed in Merton in that moment and all of the fire left his eyes. He stood shakily as if a strong wind might topple him over. His eyes darted back and forth, processing something with his quick mind that Tommy couldn’t decipher. “I can’t ask you to come out for me. That's not fair to you. I –  I’m wrong to expect...”

Tommy raised his hands in a gesture of defeat, unsure where Merton was going with this. “I’m really sorry for what happened, Merton. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Merton shook his head. Tears began to well in the corners of his eyes. “No, I understand. Being on the outskirts of humanity – all you’ve wanted since I met you was a normal existence. I can’t give you that. You need to find someone else – someone who makes you feel connected to the world, not further outcast from it – a _woman_ …”

Tommy blanched, caught off guard by his boyfriend's words. “Are you - Merton, are you _leaving_ me?” he asked. He was so shocked that the pain of it took a while to register. 

“I don’t want to,” Merton whispered, biting his lip. “But I – I have to. For you. With me you will always be a _persona non grata_. You’ll never have a normal life – ”

“What about my life is normal? I’m a werewolf. Last week I fought a kelpie!” Tommy argued hysterically. “Merton, I love you! You can’t do this!”

Merton’s arms wrapped around his body to cradle himself, tears streaking down his face. Tommy wanted nothing but to hold him and take the pain away. He reached out instinctively and placed a hand on Merton’s shoulder. This time it was Merton who jerked away. Tommy’s heart broke.

“You will always be a werewolf. But you can at least have a normal life that people see. I won’t hold you back from it.”

“Merton, please! You can’t be serious. I don’t want someone else, I want you!”

Merton gave a miserable, humorless smile. He looked pale and empty, smaller than Tommy had ever seen him. “You’re too good to leave when you should, but I can’t ask you to give up more for me than you already have. Don’t worry – I’ll look into getting a room transfer.”

Tommy’s knees gave out beneath him and he sat down heavily on the bed across from Merton. “Please, I can’t – Can we at least talk about this? I – Do you _want_ to leave me?”

Merton looked at him pitifully, his eyes wide and pained. He shook his head to deny it. “God no, Tommy I…” his voice trailed off and he swallowed, seeming to think better of what he was about to say. “I have physics in fifteen. I need to go.”

Tommy watched as Merton picked up his coffin backpack and walked out the door, latching it gently behind him. A slam might have been better because at least there would have been some passion there, but the empty despair Merton left in his wake instead made Tommy sick to his stomach. He couldn’t just feel it, he could smell it. Had been scenting it on his boyfriend for weeks and trying to pretend it wasn’t there. All this time Merton had been trying to tell Tommy he was hurting and he wasn’t listening. He was putting his fears ahead of Merton’s, and now he was going to lose him. Lose his best friend, lover, his _everything_ all in a single evening. Never had their room felt so lonely, never had he felt so horrible in his life.

 

Tommy spent the next hour wallowing in misery, mulling over their argument in his mind and trying to think of a way – _any_ way – to convince Merton not to leave. He’d hoped Merton would show back up in the dorm, but after class he didn’t come back. Tommy followed his scent – a scent he’d come to think of as pleasant and home but was now tainted with the bitter odor of sorrow – all the way to the lunchroom. 

Merton was sitting alone at a table, his fork playing idly with a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.

“Merton?” Tommy asked as he approached him.

Merton’s eyes were bloodshot and he jumped at the call of his name. “Tommy, I can’t do this with you right now. Please just leave me alone. I’m trying to be strong here.” He picked up his plate of food and his bag and stood to leave.

“Merton, please! I am begging you to wait one minute and talk to me.”

Merton ignored him and started to walk out. Panic like he’d never felt seized Tommy, and in a last ditch effort one single idea popped into his head. It had worked before, albeit under very different circumstances, but it might prove something to Merton once and for all. He reached an acceptance of his situation, said a silent prayer to God to help him, and jumped up onto the lunch table.

“Attention everybody!” Tommy shouted, sounding far more confident than he felt. It took a moment for the commotion to die down and everyone turned to look at him. Merton stopped dead in his tracks and spun, wide-eyed. 

“I hurt someone I care about,” Tommy continued. “I was worried about what everyone would think of me if they knew I was dating this person, but I didn’t think about what that would do to them.”

Tommy looked into his audience and caught Merton’s eye. The guarded expression on the goth’s face was slipping and he could see raw emotion underneath it. The werewolf drew a labored breath as his heart pounded in his throat.

“I love you, Merton, and I don’t care who here knows it. _Please_ give me another chance.”

The words were hardly able to escape his lips and he was nearly as shocked as the crowd was when he spoke them aloud. Murmurs sounded along with a few uncomfortable giggles as his audience tried to figure out if this was a joke. Tommy tried to look around the room to catch people’s reactions, but in his fear he couldn’t focus. The room swam. Finally he found the courage to let his eyes wander again to the goth. Merton’s jaw was dropped open and his hand raised to cover it.

“I’m so sorry for pushing you away, honey. I – I don’t know how to live without you,” Tommy choked.

Tears were welling in Merton’s eyes again.

Tommy swallowed, trying to rewet his tongue enough to finish the rest of the speech he’d intended to give. His whole body shook, and he felt the first indications of an imminent transformation. A heat washed over him and his forearms tingled as fur began to spread over them. He was grateful for his choice of long sleeves today. This was the worst idea he’d ever had. Having a whole room full of people stare at him when he was nervous already? As much as he needed to escape he was frozen. He was going to transform in front of hundreds of people and he couldn’t move.

“Merton…” Tommy’s voice cracked.

Merton realized what was happening. Without a moment’s hesitation he ran to Tommy’s side, lunch tray clattering to the floor and food spilling all over the tile. The stomp of his Doc Martens echoed in the room as he charged up onto the table to grab him.

Tommy’s brain turned to mush, and he felt himself being dragged by the hand down and out of the mess hall. Left in his wake was a din of noise. Applause broke out and cheers, along with loud chattering and scattered boos thrown in for measure. Some of the crowd tried to follow them out of the cafeteria. Merton pulled Tommy along faster and broke into a run to get away. Tommy followed helplessly. He felt his fangs lengthening as an extra digit grew from his hands. His rapid breathing wouldn’t slow.

Merton shot him a frantic look before shoving him into an abandoned corridor. He spun Tommy around to look him in the eyes. “We’ve have to un-wolf you before people catch up to us!”

Tommy let out a sob, unable to hold back from crying. He almost couldn’t bring himself to care if they did find out he was a werewolf. Nothing else would matter if he lost Merton.

“Merton, don’t leave me,” Tommy whispered. His voice came out rough and desperate.

Merton stroked a hand down Tommy’s neck and chest, shaking his head in disbelief, “No. Never. I’ll never leave you - I just didn’t think you wanted – Tommy, I can’t _believe_ you just did that! What about your football career and – ”

Tommy gripped the back of Merton’s hair and pulled him into an urgent kiss. Merton surrendered to it immediately, wrapping his arms around Tommy’s back and parting his lips to allow him to deepen it. Tommy sobbed against his mouth, kissing between heaving breaths, and holding him what was probably too tightly. The wolf settled underneath his skin now pacified, the imminence of transformation leaving him as he felt his lover’s mouth on his – the goth calming the beast inside.

Merton grabbed his face and pulled him away, rubbing his thumbs over the football player’s cheeks and brushing the tears away. His blue eyes were blinking back tears of their own and he smiled slowly.

“I love you so much. I am so, so sorry I didn't do this sooner,” Tommy whispered. He was about to pull Merton in for another kiss when some of Tommy’s teammates finally did catch up to them. They pulled him by the arm away from Merton.

_“Why didn’t you tell us, Dawkins?”_

_“Dude, how long have you been dating?”_

_“You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and leave!”_

_“We don't care if you're gay. You have the best arm on the team!”_

Tommy shot Merton an apologetic look. Merton grinned, squeezing his hand before Tommy was yanked out into the hallway, bombarded with more questions.

“Later,” Merton promised.

 

 


End file.
